Ficus Religiosa Leaf Powder: A Green Economical Biomaterial for the Removal of Cd(II) Ions from Aqueous Solution

摘要

The development of economical and efficient processes for the removal of toxic metals from water bodies has become a priority task for environmentalists. Biosorption processes are tangible alternatives to traditional methodologies. The present communication reports the unexploited sorption property of the Ficus religiosa leaf powder (FRLP) for the removal of Cd (II) from aqueous media. Sorption studies using standard practices have been carried out in batch experiments as functions of biomass dosage,contact time, metal concentration, particle size and pH. Morphological changes observed in the Scanning Electron Micrograph of exhausted biomass confirmed the phenomenon of bio sorption. Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectrometry analysis indicatedthat Amino acids-Metal interaction appears to be responsible for the metal binding using target plant biomass. The equilibrium results indicated that data of Cd (II) biosorption of FRLP fitted well in Freundlich and Langmuir models. Kinetics of sorptionfollows a first order rate equation. Desorption studies showed that the ease of metal ion recovery from metal-loaded biomass by the eluant solutions is of the order HNO_3> HC1. The present study explores, for the first time, the efficacy of Ficus religiosa leaf powder as a novel environment friendly possibility to remediate heavy metal contaminated water in a cost efficient manner under the domain of Green Chemistry.